Daily Archives: 2009/09/18

This is our culture now, people trying to be something they are not. (Which is similar but really opposed to aspiring to be something, as opposed to aspiring to be someone). You see this in our celebrity cult, the way people are manipulated by the media to be SHEEP, just fucking SHEEP. You hear it in the conversations that people have, the clothes they wear, even the coffee that they drink. Fuck That Shit.

‘The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves. They want to be 50 Cent or someone else. They do what everyone else does even if it doesn’t fit where and who they are. But you get nowhere that way; your energy is weak and no one pays attention to you. You’re running away from the one thing that you own—what makes you different. I lost that fear. And once I felt the power that I had by showing the world I didn’t care about being like other people, I could never go back.’ 50 Cent

Guest blogger John Graham-Cumming initiated and led the successful petition drive to procure an apology to Alan Turing from the UK government. John is the author of The Geek Atlas, CTO of a stealth-mode start-up, and a longtime programmer who has a doctorate in computer security. If you’re in London this Saturday, September 19, come by the launch party for his book at the Brunel Museum.

There’s a long tradition in the UK of direct democracy, with citizens petitioning the Prime Minister themselves. Typically, thousands of signatures are collected on paper and then delivered directly to the Prime Minister’s home at No. 10 Downing Street in London. The petitioners arrive at No. 10 and hand the signatures through the open front door.

But the British government has made great strides to bring many aspects of government relations into the electronic age. Through the non-profit MySociety.org the government has created web sites (all with open-source code) for citizens to interact with local and central government offices.

One such web site is the No. 10 Downing Street petitions page (its code is open-source and can be found here).

I used the petitions web site, a collection of Web 2.0 technologies, and a bit of media savvy to successfully petition the government to apologize for the prosecution of the seminal computer scientist Alan Turing.

“Takot na takot talaga ko pero ang laban ng simbahan ay dapat sa kaluluwa natin, sa panalangin (I am very afraid but the church’s fight is over our souls, in our prayers) and our spiritual and moral formation. That’s the challenge but not through a law, not through a governmental action,” he said.

Teodoro said he is for freedom of informed choice but against abortion and “enforced belief” that contraception is bad.

The state, he said, should not adopt the view of any particular religion.

“The state should be non-religious, non sectarian. It should give opportunities to all those based on what they personally believe,” he said.

“The advocacy of the Church is important, very important but that is a matter for an individual conscience and own soul, that is not a matter of government enforcement,” he further said.